close ones to Oregon and Oregon State. The loss to the Rose Bowl-bound Beavers in Corvallis came by a late third quarter OSU punt return. The Vandals rebounded and the next week won the Battle of the Palouse for the first time in a decade, defeating neighbor Washington State The Cougars were led by first-year head coach Bert Clark, a former Sooner teammate; the Vandals split the final four games to finish at 4–6. While Idaho had been a driving force in the founding of the Big Sky Conference in 1963, it was primarily to alleviate basketball scheduling and the Vandals remained an independent for football through 1964 under Andros. Only one conference foe was played during the first two Big Sky seasons, a 1963 game with Idaho State that was previously scheduled. Idaho was in the University Division, while the other Big Sky members were in the College Division (which became Division II in 1973) for football. After Andros left, Idaho began conference play in 1965 under head coach Steve Musseau, Andros' defensive coordinator. Andros spent three years on the Palouse at Idaho, with an overall record of . One of his first-year hires at Idaho in 1962 was alumnus Bud Riley then the head coach and athletic director at Lewiston High School, south of Moscow. A former Vandal halfback for Dixie Howell, he coached the Idaho freshman team for Andros and went with him to OSU in 1965. Riley was a defensive assistant in Corvallis for eight years before moving on to the Canadian Football League in 1973 and became a head coach the following year. His eldest son Mike (b.1953) was the head coach at Oregon State for fourteen seasons and later at Nebraska. Oregon State Andros was hired as the head coach at Oregon State in February He replaced the legendary Tommy Prothro, who left after ten seasons in Corvallis for UCLA, just ten days after leading the Beavers in the Rose Bowl. Andros compiled a record in eleven seasons at OSU. In the Civil War games against the Oregon Ducks, he won his first seven and split the last four, for an overall record of Andros was nicknamed "The Great Pumpkin" for his bright orange jacket and large physical size, first dubbed by a Spokane sports columnist during the homecoming rout of WSU in Pullman on Halloween weekend in 1966. It was his first game